Casinos and other gaming establishments often include both gaming machines, for example, slot machines providing slot games and gaming tables providing table games such as craps. As a result, many game play options are available to patrons of the gaming establishments. Interestingly, whether due to human nature, risk tolerance, economics, skills, game familiarity, etc., it has been observed that some patrons consistently prefer gaming machine play while others prefer table game play. Shrewd gaming establishment operators consequently strive to offer a proper balance between entertaining and exciting gaming machines that encourage frequent and extended play, and fast paced gaming tables offering games such as blackjack, roulette, craps, keno, baccarat, etc where wagering amounts per game are often substantial.
As is known, a gaming machine may be configured as a video gaming machine to provide video slots, video poker, video blackjack, video keno, video bingo, video pachinko, video lottery, etc., or as an electro-mechanical machine to provide a spinning reel slots game. As is also known, video gaming machines include at least one video display for displaying video game images (e.g., simulated reel symbol arrays, simulated cards, simulated numbers, etc.) and may additionally include a touch screen to allow player interaction. Mechanical spinning reel slot machines generally do not include a video display and instead, include a main reel display area configured to allow a player to view a reel symbol array provided by stopped mechanical spinning reels. In either case, the popularity of gaming machines with players is often dependent on the likelihood (or perceived likelihood) of winning money at the gaming machine and the intrinsic entertainment value of the gaming machine relative to other available gaming options. Where the available gaming options include a number of competing gaming machines and the expectation of winning on each machine is roughly the same (or believed to be the same), players are more likely to be attracted to the most entertaining and exciting of the machines. Accordingly, popular game themes and/or secondary or bonus games added to the base games have become common place in an attempt to attract players and provide an additional level of excitement to game play.